LUST FOR LILACS…

Leo Dangel

It’s not the red-breasted bob-bob-bobin’ robin that heralds another green season in the warm sun. It’s a lust for lilacs. Morning, noon, midnight air scented in a fragrance so divine, wafting you home…

Take a deep breath. Another.

Wrap it around your shoulders…Proust never wrote it– A Remembrance of Lilac Things Past. But he caught the essence. Then.

But this is the moment. NOW! Carpe syringa diem. Everything good is gone soon enough..

“Lavender blue, dilly, dilly…” (Where the hell did that come from?)

Or,

In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the white-wash’d palings, Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich green, With many a pointed blossom, rising, delicate, with the perfume strong I love, With every leaf a miracle……and from this bush in the door-yard, With delicate-color’d blossoms, and heart-shaped leaves of rich green, A sprig, with its flower, I break.
—“When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d”… for Walt W. and Abe L.

Violet, pink, light purple, purple, deep purple, white…Ahhhhhhhh

I leave the house and the day seizes me in a single step-smell—where lilacs meet and greet, all a-bloom’d in the door-yard. Ahhhhh. More…

I have missions in town to accomplish immediately — but take, instead, the long slow way to everywhere that doesn’t matter and nowhere to go …the back roads…the open fields…the ambush-bursts of lilac bushes in bloom randomly scattered here, there, everywhere… I slow the car down to a crawl, open all the windows… breathe even deeper than before, the deepest, purplish scented air imaginable…recall a woman who wore lilac lingerie (exercising the right of poetic license )…Oh, yes…(she said,) yes… And so did he…or should have.

And though I’d rather not call a halt to lilac lust—I must). This is just a reminder that it all started all over again when I finally suddenly inhaled that first scent of lilacs in the backdoor yard the other morning–after a legendary long winter that refused to surrender to spring, day after day, week after week, on and into the coldest June…the lilacs, scent-less, wondering would they ever bloom again?

This is just to say that on my downtime, slow-time sojourn into backroad lilac nirvana, I was reminded too of this time being the right time, the best time of year not only by lilac air drifting through my car windows…but by words as well …tuned in as I was to Garrison…catching, mid-way through The Writers Almanac, the last few stanzas of my friend Leo Dangel’s absolutely lilac lifting, drifting poem.

Leo, who captures lilacs–and everything rural…real…just right!

FOUR KINDS OF LILACS

by Leo Dangel

“Why don’t you turn at the next corner,”
she said, “and take another road home.
Let’s go past that farm with all
the different colored lilacs.”

“That’s seven miles out of the way,”
he said. “I wanted to plant the rest
of the corn before evening. We
can look at lilacs some other time.”

“It’ll take only a few minutes”
she said. “You know that lilacs
aren’t in bloom for long—if we
don’t go now, it will be too late.”

“We drove past there last year,”
he said. “They’re like any other lilacs
except for the different colors. The rest
of the year, they’re all just bushes.”

“They’re lilac, purple, white, and pink,”
she said. “And today, with no breeze,
the scent will hang in the air—no flowers
smell as good as lilacs in the spring.”

“I thought of planting lilacs once,”
he said, “for a windbreak in the grove.
The good smell lasts only a few days.
I suppose we can go, if we hurry.”

COULD YOU WRITE A FEW WORDS ABOUT

WHAT YOU DID SINCE GRADUATION FOR

THE HIGH SCHOOL ALUMNI NEWSLETTER?

a

a

Thirty years ago,
after we marched in the gym
and partied in the Legion Hall,
with the eastern sky lighting up,
I lay down on the back seat of my car
behind Maggie’s Truck Stop Cafe.
No sense in getting home
just in time to milk the cows.
But I was too keyed up for sleep.
There was a box of dirty clothes
in the trunk, and I put on
a blue work shirt and jeans.
At the counter in Maggie’s,
I ordered eggs, sunny side up.
A new waitress—I think
I noticed then for the first time
that a woman over thirty
could be sexy—asked if I
was going to work with the road
crew out west. “Yes,” I lied.
Life on the highway seemed better
than going back to the farm.
“More coffee, honey?” she said.
“Sure, babe,” I said. “What time
you get off work?”
“Five this afternoon,” she said,
sounding as though
she might not be kidding.
Skipping ahead a few years,
I can honestly say it’s been
a good life, but never better
than that morning, diving home,
the car windows wide open,
and smells of spring grass blowing in.
The radio blared the latest hit,
“The Battle of New Orleans,” a happy song
about war, and I sang along,
taking easy victory for granted.

THE BURDEN OF THE MUSE IN A SMALL TOWN

On Saturday evening, .
as usual, I’m sitting
on Irene’s couch
in her apartment above
Dwyer’s Hardware Store,
watching the fuzzy screen
of her black and white TV.
I’m about to open
my second bottle of Grainbelt,
when Irene says,
“I wish you’d say something witty
and romantic for a change.”

What does she expect?
Poetry on demand?
I still have some good lines
left in me, but I’m tired—
it’s the dog days of summer.
But I find myself
rummaging through my head,
thinking about the only
creative contribution
this town ever made
to the English language.
Word got around that Vernon,
who sang in a barbershop quartet,
was always telling his wife
that he was going to Sioux Falls
for singing practice.
“Singing Practice” became
the standard expression, as in
“My tomcat was out last night
at singing practice.”

I set my beer down, turn to Irene,
put one hand above my heart,
unfold my other arm in a grand
sweeping gesture, and say,
“Irene, the corn chips
may have no snap left
and the Grainbelt
has lost most of its fizz,
but Irene, I
am ready for singing practice.
I need to break out
into song. Irene, let’s see
if we can duet in close harmony.
One singing practice will bring
my warble to crooning perfection.”
And Irene says, “Ha,
you can’t even carry a tune.”

AT BREAKFAST

“That’s the last of the coffee,” she said,
pouring a few drops into his cup.
“It’s time you went out to work anyway.”

“I don’t know if I’ll plow today,” he said.
“Look, the sky is clouding up.
It might start to rain.”

“The sun is shining,” she said.
“I need to wash the dishes so I can go
to the beauty shop in town.”

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3 responses

Norb, I read the lilac poem yesterday on the Almanac. These three are new to me and I really enjoyed them. Kind of a cross between William Stafford and Jimmy Stewart. Thanks for turning me on to another good poet. Mike

Ahhh, I weep when the scent of lilacs arrive….riding my bike to Lilacia Park every year to assault the many breeds of the smelly devils that anoint the beginning of springs blossoming seduction. I always leave the park a wandering drunk with a perfumed flower draped over my ear, as a souvenir, that inevitably winds up on my pillow for nights.

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Norbert Blei | 1935 – 2013

On the back roads of Door County again

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